


Some Sins Won't Wash Away

by DesertVixen



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), During Canon, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Missing Scene, Natasha Feels, Natasha Needs a Hug, Pre-Relationship, Protective Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-15
Updated: 2016-07-15
Packaged: 2018-07-24 02:51:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7490391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertVixen/pseuds/DesertVixen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha hopes a shower will help her feel better...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Some Sins Won't Wash Away

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flipflop_diva](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Let the Water Wash You Clean](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6602380) by [flipflop_diva](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/pseuds/flipflop_diva). 



The water was cold, just as he had said.

She hated cold water, hated to be cold. It had always been cold in the Red Room, yet another way of weeding out the weak among the girls, yet another way to sharpen their skills. The freedom to shower in hot water, whenever she wanted, was a small one, but Natasha had never forgotten the feeling of that first gloriously steamy shower.

Even the steam had escaped from the bathroom while she had been talking to Bruce, while she had been laying her soul bare. It left the tiles cold against her bare feet, and Natasha wondered if maybe she shouldn’t cut her losses, walk back to her bedroom, and just lie there until another crisis intervened. 

Maybe she had come to Bruce looking for something more, but now she needed a shower, needed the chance to wash herself clean.

That, and she couldn’t bear the thought of opening the door, facing the possibility that he might still be there, pitying her, or worse – thinking she had come back to plead with him. The whole situation was awkward enough as it was. 

So Natasha turned on the water and stepped under the spray, barely even flinching at the cold. She moved mechanically, dipping her head under the spray….  
…until suddenly she wasn’t in the shower in the farmhouse, but back in the Red Room, shivering under the cold water with the others, because of course there was no privacy, no place for them to hide…

Natasha came back to herself, and realized she was huddled in a corner of the shower.

If only Hawkeye had taken out the Maximoff girl before she had used her powers to mind-fuck the team, she thought. The memories in her head were bad enough, although Natasha wondered what the others had seen – if they were chased by actual memories or their fears. Knowing that those memories might jump up and bite at any moment, that what she had been forced to be might sabotage everything she had chosen, was torture.

The fact that she wasn’t the only one suffering failed to make the situation any better. They were all wounded, and all of them needed space in which to lick their wounds, or try to wash the blood from those wounds down the drain. It was something they simply didn’t have.

All of it – the memories of the Red Room, their failure, Bruce’s rejection – came crashing down on her, and Natasha did something that she almost never allowed herself to do.

She cried, another luxury she’d never been given in the Red Room. Her tears mixed with the water, warm salt and freezing cold, but they didn’t take away the pressure in her chest or the conviction that they were fighting something they might not be able to handle.

It was some time before she could reach up to turn the shower off, but even then it was too much trouble to get up off the shower floor. 

So she stayed huddled, and waited for whatever the next blow would be.

*** *** 

After Steve walked out, Natasha sat on the bed awhile, still wrapped in the towel. She kept hearing his voice in her head – _Whatever you’re upset about, whoever hurt you…I just want you to be okay_ – and kept wishing that she could break down her walls. The two of them had shared something that the rest of the team had not, down in Zola’s bunker, and later. 

She hadn’t fought him. She had let him carry her out of the bathroom, let him try to take care of her. 

Then she had ruined it all by hinting about him wanting to get her naked in bed. Maybe it hadn’t been the best moment for humor, but she had learned that there were some situations in which you had to laugh, or break down in tears. She had already tried tears, and they hadn’t made her feel one bit better.

Finally, she made herself get off the bed, and took a pair of blue flannel pajamas out of the closet. They were old and worn, and the most comfortable thing she owned. They had been Clint’s once, until she had borrowed them and "forgotten" to return them. 

She was still closer with Clint than with anyone else on the team, but she didn’t want to talk to him about her problems here, didn’t want to bring her ugliness into this safe house. She didn’t want to intrude on what little time he had with Laura, especially not with what they might be facing.

So she huddled under the covers, and tried to fall into forgetful sleep.

*** 

_You know where I am. I just want you to be okay._

His words kept coming back to her. She knew he meant them, knew that Steve Rogers saw taking care of his fellow Avengers as one of his duties. He had known she wasn’t okay, but she hadn’t left him any room to do anything about it.

Now, however, she found herself wondering how much this whole thing was affecting him, wondering what phantoms haunted his visions. 

Wondering if he was sleeping any better than she was, and betting that he was not.

Wondering if maybe he needed someone to take care of him.

She was able to avoid the creaky boards in the floor as she walked down the hallway, and pushed on Steve’s door.

Natasha had been right – he had managed to fall asleep, but it wasn't a restful one.

She lay down next to him, draping her arm around his shoulders, turning her face into the line of his neck. He had clearly taken a shower despite the lack of hot water – she could still smell his soap, a clean crisp masculine scent. It was tempting to curl into him and close her eyes, to see if she could sleep now.

From the way his body tensed and jerked, she was sure he was dreaming about something unpleasant. She tightened her arm around his shoulder, and when that failed, she leaned over him, touched her lips to his neck, and felt him jerk awake. 

He spoke her name, his voice quiet. “What are you doing here?”

“You said I could come find you,” Natasha said slowly, then paused. “Did you not mean now?” If he rejected her, she didn’t know what she would do, or could do.

“No, I meant exactly now,” he answered after a second. “Wasn’t doing anything else important.” 

Relief bubbled up inside her, slipped past her lips in a laugh. She let herself sink down next to him again, nestling her head into his shoulder, feeling the safest she had felt in the last few days.

“I figured as much,” she said.

_I hoped you would say that_ , she thought to herself, letting her fingers trace aimlessly over his chest.

**Author's Note:**

> So, I was super-stoked to draw this story in the exchange - and then I realized just HOW POPULAR it was, which was a tiny bit nerve-wracking. I loved the original too, and I enjoyed the chance to weave a little more into the story.
> 
> I hope you like it!
> 
> The story is set after the Bruce/Nat extended/deleted scene in AoU (which I liked much better, but I'm not a big fan of the Bruce/Nat thing anyway), which I highly recommend. It's a little more definitive than the version in the movie, but it wouldn't have worked with later scenes.
> 
> Some dialogue is taken from "Let The Water Wash You Clean" by flipflop_diva


End file.
